OFCCP Compliance Rules You Might Not be Aware Of

May 28, 2013 By 2 Comments

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I would bet there are OFCCP compliance rules that you might not be aware of. As human resource professionals, we know all to well how tough it can be to keep up with rule changes issued by the OFCCP. For example, Quest Diagnostics, a medical testing company, found itself in hot water and had adjust its hiring practices after the New York Attorney General’s office determined that the company broke the law when it refused to hire job applicants who had criminal convictions during the previous seven years, according to a report from Lexology.

Listen, it’s simply bad business to not understand the OFCCP regulations and to put your company at risk with discriminatory hiring practices. Moreover,it pays to invest time on a regular basis to keep yourself informed on OFCCP rules and regulations to ensure that your organization remains in compliance and out of the hot seat. One thing that people who have been through an OFCCP audit will tell you is: once you’ve been audited, expect to be audited again and again.

To minimize your organization’s potential liability for engaging in discriminatory hiring practices, follow these easy steps.

1. Take the time to visit the OFCCP website on a regular basis. Repeated visits to the site will help you keep up with the latest news about rules and regulations, and to learn about companies that have violated the rules, so you can learn from their mistakes.  As an HR professional at an employer with a government contract, it’s your responsibility to know the rules.

2. Always consult with an expert. If you don’t have an expert in-house, find a reputable labor attorney or work with a leading affirmative action consulting firm. We recommend Pinnacle HR Consulting. They have an entire practice dedicated to recruitment compliance. Don’t leave compliance to chance. get another set of eyes on your hiring program.

3. Choose an applicant tracking system that makes staying OFCCP compliant easy. Knowing what to look for and understanding the right questions to ask when choosing an ATS is a great first step. We also strongly encourage you to take the time to see compliance functionality in action so you’ll understand how everything works once your ATS is live. This is important stuff; don’t just take a salesperson’s word for it or leave anything to chance. Here is an infographic that tells what questions to ask when selecting the right applicant tracking software.

 

Filed Under: applicant tracking software, Applicant Tracking Software Reviews, choosing recruiting software, EEO, EEOC, OFCCP, Recruiting Advice, Safe Hiring

Choose an Applicant Tracking System That Your Hiring Managers Will Use

May 14, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Choose an Applicant Tracking System That your Hiring Managers Will Use

Choose an applicant tracking system that your hiring managers will use. Pretty obvious advice right? Well, it’s harder than it sounds. These days applicant tracking software comes with all sorts of bells and whistles and it’s easy to lose sight of what matters most. In today’s connected world where recruiting moves faster than ever, it’s critical to choose recruiting software that hiring managers can and will use.

When applicant tracking software lives up to it’s potential and is easily adopted by hiring managers, employers win big with:

  • Overall process improvement
  • Enhanced collaboration
  • streamlined efficiency
  • Accurate recruiting analytics
  • foolproof recruiting compliance

Here are 5 must-haves when choosing applicant tracking software that your entire team will want to use.

1. Usability is #1

Shop for usability above everything else. Don’t be distracted by features that your hiring managers will never use. Remember, you are selecting a system that will touch all of the actors in your hiring process. If it’s easy-to-use they will use it.

2. Accessibility is key

Choose an ATS that works on any browser, any computer and on tablet devices.

3.  The 90/10 Rule

Choose an applicant tracking system that does well what your hiring managers do 90% of the time. Reviewing resumes should be a snap. Making decisions should take one click. Providing feedback shouldn’t even require a login in. Make it simple and they will use it.

4. No Login Required

Choose an applicant tracking system that empowers your team to make decisions, submit approvals, and provide feedback without even logging in. That’s right, let them have email! Some hiring managers will just never login to your ATS. If that’s the case, choose a system that lets them work how they want to work.

5. Low to No Training

Let’s face it, nobody likes training. Choose applicant tracking software that’s easy to roll out and ramp up. If the ATS is easy to learn and easy to remember, everyone wins.

Filed Under: applicant tracking software, Applicant Tracking Software Reviews, applicant tracking system, choosing recruiting software, Corporate Recruiting, Design Philosophy, Infographic, Recruiting Advice, User Adoption

On a Mission to Build an Applicant Tracking System that Improves Process

March 25, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Mission: Improve Recruiting Process

Newton is the brainchild of recruiting professionals (that’s us) that launched the product in 2009. Since day, one we’ve been on a mission to build an applicant tracking system that improves process. We wanted to design something that would make rolling out, ramping up, managing, and improving corporate hiring programs easier. We wanted something that offered a more collaborative experience for all users. And, we needed something that was simple and easy-to-use so people would actually use it.

Today, the recruiting software market is hot. Just look at the latest numbers. There are over 300 new companies tagged with “recruiting” on CrunchBase alone. Shiny tools are popping up every week that promise to optimize or disrupt some aspect of recruiting or another. What was a space all but ignored by investors is now in the spotlight. Responsive applications that promise to mobilize, socialize and gamify recruiting are all over the web but none ever make mention of actually improving the recruiting process. I guess that kind of talk isn’t that sexy.

Our mission to improve the recruiting process for employers has never really been perceived as cool or sexy. In fact, even the mere mention of the word process often causes eyes to glaze over. But that doesn’t stop us. Having run corporate recruiting programs for over 15 years prior with paper resumes, email, spreadsheets, legacy software, sparse resources, demanding hiring managers and even more demanding executives, we understand that good process is actually as important as it gets. That’s why we obsess over designing Newton to be the best process manager possible instead of constantly chasing the next new potentially disruptive trend.

To be clear, I am not dissing or dismissing mobile, social and gamification. I do know that despite all the shiny new tools on the market, recruiting is still tough for  employers. And,when recruiting technology does well what 80% of users do all the time, it truly lives up to it’s potential. More users means more data. More data yields better analytics. Better analytics help employers find bottlenecks and issues before they become bigger problems. Sounds pretty sexy to me.

Filed Under: applicant tracking software, Applicant Tracking Software Reviews, choosing recruiting software, Corporate Philosophy, Industry Trends, Mad Scientist, User Adoption

Newton Announces Release Date for Huge Applicant Tracking System Upgrade

March 7, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Newton Echo

Coming soon Newton Echo, a feature release so big we named it.

On April 8th, Newton delivers one of our biggest releases to our applicant tracking system ever, Echo. We named this release Echo for two reasons: first, many of the ideas in this release came from customer feedback (we heard you); second, much of the functionality of this release revolves around information being sent from and returned to Newton (like an echo).

Newton set the bar high with 9 major feature releases last year alone. Rest assured, we’re not going to let up in 2013. As always, these upgrades will be made available to Newton applicant tracking software customers at no additional cost. In fact, all of Newton’s popular, easy-to-use features are included in the Newton package. And, we’ll host a series of webinars to cover all the new functionality. Customers will receive an invitation soon.

There’s more. Next month we’ll announce another awesome new feature that will be out before people hit the beach on the East Coast. It’s top secret for now but we can tell you that it’s social, it’s mobile and it will help your employees generate more applicants. Stay tuned.

Filed Under: applicant tracking software, applicant tracking system, choosing recruiting software, Company News, New Releases, News, Optimism, Release Notes

Infographic: Choosing an Applicant Tracking System to Promote EEO / OFCCP Compliance

February 11, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Choosing an applicant tracking system to promote EEO / OFCCP compliance can be a daunting experience. OFCCP regulations are confusing enough and most employers realize that manually tracking all of the information needed to run a compliant recruiting program is not an option anymore. We created this infographic as a guide to help you ask the right questions when choosing applicant tracking software for your organization. Knowing what to look for and understanding the right questions to ask is a great first step. We also strongly encourage you to take the time to see compliance functionality in action so you’ll understand how everything works once your ATS is live. This is important stuff; don’t just take a salesperson’s word for it or leave anything to chance.

Choosing an Applicant Tracking System to Promote EEO / OFCCP Compliance

Choosing an Applicant Tracking System to Promote EEO / OFCCP Compliance

Our experience with OFCCP compliance tracking for small and medium-sized employers

Over the years, we’ve worked with labor attorneys, affirmative action experts, HR professionals, customers and even present and former OFCCP compliance officers to ensure that Newton collects, tracks, stores and reports the correct information employers need to stay safe. Nearly 12% of Newton’s customers are GSA or sub-GSA contractors so designing SAFE software is a must. And, we’re proud to know that several of our customers have leaned on Newton to help them successfully complete OFCCP audits. At Newton, we believe that small employers deserve the best business technology available. And, for small and medium-sized businesses that are in growth mode, what could be more important than having a simple, online system that allows people to work smarter not harder while keeping them in safe and in compliance? That’s why we build Newton:  a SIMPLE, SMART, SAFE applicant tracking system that employers love to rely on.

 

Filed Under: applicant tracking software, applicant tracking system, choosing recruiting software, Corporate Recruiting, EEO, Infographic, OFCCP, Recruiting Advice, Safe Hiring Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Prezi Tour of the Newton Applicant Tracking System

November 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Newton® is a cloud-based applicant tracking system designed to manage recruiting programs for small and medium-sized employers.

Click through this Prezi to learn more about how Newton is the SIMPLE, SMART, SAFE choice for employers that want to manage and organize recruiting programs in the cloud.

Newton Software is a leading developer of applicant tracking systems designed to organize and improve internal recruiting programs for small and medium-sized employers (30-2500 employees). The company was started in 2009 with the goal of “consumerizing” applicant tracking technology by making powerful technology that is easy-to-use, easy-to-purchase and easy-to-activate. Today, Newton is used by over 500 employers that enjoy great service, free support, intuitive product design and constant upgrades.

Contact:

Newton, Inc.
415-593-1190
http://www.newtonsoftware.com

 

Filed Under: Applicant Tracking, applicant tracking software, choosing recruiting software, Mad Scientist

Newton Applicant Tracking Software Online Brochure

October 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Newton Software is a privately held, profitable, technology company headquartered in San Francisco, CA. The company was founded in 2009 and immediately launched a product to improve internal recruiting programs for small and medium-sized employers called Newton.

Innovation delivered on a cutting-edge platform

When you choose Newton, you’ve selected the most modern, fully-featured applicant tracking software available. Newton is completely web- based and built on an open technology platform that’s hosted securely in the Cloud (SAS 70). Coupled with an award winning, best in class interface, Newton delivers a user experience that resembles today’s most popular consumer internet experiences.

The only ATS designed to improve the process of hiring people

At Newton, our number one goal is to design software that helps organizations improve their hiring processes. We understand that recruiting is a linear business process defined by a series of YES and NO decisions and from day one Newton is configured to drive these critical decisions. Newton’s entire feature set is thoughtfully architected  to promote efficiency, transparency and collaboration.

Built with experience by corporate recruiting experts

Having activated, implemented and supported talent platforms for more than a decade, Newton’s product team has learned a thing or two about designing recruiting software.  Newton is thoughtfully designed to work the way that recruiting works. This makes getting started surprisingly easy and ensures that anyone can and will collaborate using Newton. With Newton, you won’t spend weeks customizing the recruiting process.  On average, Newton is up and running in less than 15 business days.

Filed Under: Applicant Tracking, Applicant Tracking Software Reviews, choosing recruiting software, Introduction

The Secret to Hiring Manager Adoption

September 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment

 

hiringmanagerChoosing the best applicant tracking software for your organization can be a confusing experience. It’s easy to lose sight of what’s important. Most vendors have a sweet spot, a set of features that address at least one critical part of the hiring process. Sit through a couple of PowerPoint presentations with sales engineers clicking through their demo scripts and lots of us are back to where we started: unsure of what to think and what really matters.

My advice is to forget about the feature checklists and focus on the big picture, end user adoption. For employers, there are very few other fundamental concepts that matter more. If your line managers consistently use your applicant tracking platform to request and initiate approvals, you’ve addressed the paper processes at the very beginning of the talent chain and created a layer of exception management that can only exist in a digital environment. Even more critical, if hiring managers consistently help drive the decisions that drive today’s hiring programs and do so on any platform effortlessly, you’ve got a solution that will make everyone happy.

Here’s another reason to focus on manager adoption as key concept driving your ATS selection. If you’re like most HR and recruiting leaders, metrics have become the front and center topic especially when you’ve recently invested in technology. I am not talking about “big data”. I am talking about measuring what matters most like are you getting candidates the managers want to speak with? How are you processing those applicants? How long does it take your line managers to make decisions?

Remember, hiring manager input is necessary to gather the most important metrics. If the recruiting and HR users are the only ones using your system, it’s only logical that the system will capture metrics exclusively from administrative users. This won’t yield helpful insights without significant data manipulation (you know, building spreadsheets by hand on Fridays). Only when hiring managers are consistently using an ATS will you be able to get holistic recruiting performance metrics that will help you automatically generate reports and have the knowledge to pinpoint bottlenecks and areas for improvement.

As you create your ATS shortlist, ask yourself: what system will garner the most adoption amongst all of my users? What system is the easiest to use and will be the easiest to roll out to new managers and interviewers joining the organization every week? What system will make the most sense from day one and require the least training? Whether or not your hiring managers will adopt an ATS shouldn’t even be a question.

Here are 5 tips to help you choose applicant tracking software that will promote user adoption.

1. Choose an ATS that works on every platform that your managers work on and remember that many people want to work on the iPads these days.

2. Shop for usability. You won’t make ATS software easier to use by buying the product with the most bells and whistles.

3. Hiring managers balk at complicated training. Any ATS that requires extensive training will only be adopted by a small number of users.

4. Remember, only features that provide the best user experience will be used. Expecting managers to do too much is a recipe for failure.

5. The 90/10 rule applies to user adoption. Choose an ATS that does well what your hiring managers do 90% of the time. Hint: think about how easy it is to review resumes and make decisions.

Here’s how we do it at Newton Software

 

Filed Under: choosing recruiting software, Design Philosophy, Industry Trends, Recruiting Advice, User Adoption, Videos

Feature Spotlight: Recruiting Dashboards

July 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Newton is modern applicant tracking system, designed to give you and your team unparalleled visibility into your recruiting program from day one. Starting right from your Home Page,  Newton presents an easy-to-read dashboard that serves as air-traffic control for your recruiting program. Just log in and see:

  • All of the open jobs that you are responsible for
  • All of the active applicants in the pipelines for those jobs organized by stage of the interview process
  • A notification of any new applicants that need to be reviewed
  • Any important approval processes that you should be aware of
  • and more….

View, manage and organize jobs by priority,departments, locations and business units from one central dashboard, with one login. Now you can stay on top of what’s happening in recruiting with a glance without any clicking around.  And, your home page is also available when you’re on the go with Newton Touch, our mobile platform.

Newton also provides analytics dashboards for users that want to check on recruiting performance at-a-glance. View real-time performance metrics from one interactive dashboard and in just seconds learn more about conversion rates, best sources of applicants, and even pinpoint bottlenecks and issues before they become bigger problems.

 

With the ability to see what’s happening in your recruiting process you’ll have the control to continuously make improvements and with all of your data at your fingertips online you’ll have the power to make informed decisions about how to better manage your recruiting program.

Contact Newton Software to learn more about applicant tracking software that provides powerful recruiting dashboards.

Filed Under: Applicant Tracking Software Reviews, Blog, choosing recruiting software, Feature Spotlight, recruiting dashboards

Buyers of Applicant Tracking Software Deserve Free Training and Support

June 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment

People choose Newton, our  applicant tracking software specifically designed for small and medium-sized businesses, because it’s easy-to-use and intuitive – really.  The funny thing is, every recruiting software vendor claims that their ATS is easy-to-use. Makes sense. As a vendor, you can’t  advertise that your product is confusing but has some other feature or functionality that may be  initially appealing  to buyers. And while some buyers are convinced that they need this or that feature, at the end of the day everyone still needs to weigh everything against one questions: will the employees at our company use this tool? If’ it’s truly easy-to-use, they will. And, if they use it, you’ll gain the organization, efficiency and insights you need.

Once the decision is made to select Newton, it’s time to eat our own cookin’. One of the first things we tell any customer when they choose Newton is, “If you don’t understand something, no matter how small, it’s our fault, not yours. Let us know.” We ENCOURAGE technical support emails and phone calls. Yes, we’re being serious. We’re sure some of our peers think that we’re crazy for offering training and support for free. We think they’re crazy for trying to charge for training whether it’s the initial go-live training or follow-on and “refresher” training. If the applicant tracking system is truly easy-to-use, it should be easy to train users. Period. If it’s easy to train users, it shouldn’t be viewed as a profit center. Applicant tracking software training should always be free for small and medium-sized businesses. After all, you were promised that this would be easy.

At Newton, we don’t expect you to have any problems getting started or running our applicant tracking software, however, we also make it our priority to provide fast, friendly and free technical support and free training for all of our customers. And, if you used Newton for a while and want to get back on the rails with “refresher training” it’s always free and our Services team is happy to help. Add a new Administrative User like a new recruiter? Free training. Have some turnover in HR? Free training. Our motto, message and focus has remained the same since the beginning:  “If you don’t understand something, no matter how small, it’s our fault not yours.  Let us know.” There, we’ve said it again.

Finally, we view training as an opportunity.  Our teams value  feedback and absorb it in order to understand where users are getting confused. This allows our product team to continually engineer complexity out of the product. We realize that our customers are the best gauge of how to improve our product – so we take suggestions seriously.

Don’t just take our word for it. Here are a few highlights of what real people have to say about Newton. And. there are plenty of other endorsements on our LinkedIn Products Page. Just click here to see for yourself.

“Newton is a great system!! It’s easy to use and gets our hiring managers more involved in the recruitment process. The Newton team has been more than helpful in getting our employees trained in Newton. I would recommended this software to any recruiter.”


“Prior to selecting Newton as our ATS, I was on the cusp of selecting Taleo, but am thankful that Newton came to my attention and I’ve not looked back since. I’ve used several ATS systems in my career – PC Recruiter, iCIMS, CBIZ – none were as user-friendly as Newton. I look forward to a long relationship with the Newton team.”


“I’ve been in recruiting for years, and of all the applicant tracking systems I’ve used (7 total), Newton is by far the best. It’s easy for everyone to grasp, even the technically challenged, it makes sense. Newton provides free training and great customer service.”

Filed Under: Applicant Tracking Software Reviews, Blog, Business Model, choosing recruiting software, Optimism, Trends, User Adoption

Choose Applicant Tracking Software that Promotes Hiring Manager Adoption

May 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Choosing the right applicant tracking software can be a daunting experience. With so much to choose from, it’s easy to lose sight of what’s important. Most vendors have a sweet spot, a set of features that address at least one part of the talent acquisition process. Sit through a couple of PowerPoint presentations with sales engineers clicking through their demo scripts and lots of us are back to where we started: the realization that this decision requires careful thought and a look at the bigger picture.

Here’s a tip. Forget about the feature checklists. Focus on the biggest concept, hiring manager adoption. For buyers of corporate applicant tracking software, there are very few other fundamental concepts that matter more. If your managers willingly use the platform to request and initiate approvals, you’ve zapped antiquated paper processes and created a layer of exception management that can only exist in a digital environment. Even more importantly, if hiring managers consistently help drive the yes and no decisions that drive today’s hiring programs and do so quickly and easily, it’s a huge win for you and your organization.

Here’s another reason to focuson hiring manager adoption as key concept driving your ATS shoice. If you’re like most HR and recruiting leaders, metrics have become the front and center topic. If you are going to get budget approval for a new ATS, trust me, the executives are going to want reports. In the end, if the recruiting and HR users are the only ones using the system, it’s only logical that the system will capture metrics exclusively from administrative users. This won’t yield helpful insights without significant data manipulation (you know, building spreadsheets by hand on Fridays). Only when hiring managers are consistently using an ATS will you be able to get holistic recruiting performance metrics that will help you automatically generate reports and have the knowledge to pinpoint bottlenecks and areas for improvement.

As you create your ATS shortlist, ask yourself: what system will garner the most adoption amongst all of my users? What system is the easiest to use, easiest to activate and will be the easiest to roll out to new managers and interviewers joining the organization every week? Most importantly, whether or not your hiring managers will adopt an ATS isn’t even a question anymore. Hiring manager adoption is no longer a nice benefit. It’s not a feature. Hiring manager adoption is a must.

Here are 5 tips to help you choose applicant tracking software that will promote user adoption.

1. Hiring managers don’t care about the technology. What counts is what it does for them.

2. Shop for usability. You won’t make ATS software easier to adopt by shopping for the most features.

3. Hiring managers loathe software training. Any ATS that requires extensive training will only be adopted by a small number of users.

4. Remember, only features that provide a good user experience will be used. Expecting managers to login proactively and complete a task is unrealistic.

5. The 80/20 rule applies to user adoption. Choose an ATS that does well what 80 percent of your hiring managers do all the time. Hint: think making reviewing resumes as simple as possible.

View and share the digital booklet with a friend.




Filed Under: Applicant Tracking, Applicant Tracking Software Reviews, Blog, choosing recruiting software, Corporate Recruiting, Industry Trends, Recruiting Advice, User Adoption

Green is Go. Red is No.®

April 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Hiring is, at its simplest, a linear process, characterized by discrete stages that are driven by yes and no decisions.  The easiest way to hire people faster is to eliminate wasted steps in your recruiting process and reduce periods of inactivity i.e. waiting. We design Newton to standardize the process of hiring by removing inefficient activities (i.e., friction) from the hiring process, reducing periods of inactivity (wasted time) and promoting decision making. Green is Go. Red is No.®

Here’s how it works:


Organizations that choose Newton get more than an easy-to-use applicant tracking system. They get a platform that’s designed around a proven, fully optimized workflow that promotes collaboration, captures critical data for compliance, and provides game-changing analytics. It’s not just a tool … it’s an infrastructure for recruiting.

Filed Under: Applicant Tracking Software Reviews, Blog, choosing recruiting software, interviewing, Lean Hiring, Recruiting Advice, Videos

Download Our Guide to Lean Hiring

March 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Lean hiring is about simplicity and removing the wasted steps in your recruiting process.  It’s  about focusing on optimizing your processes first and foremost. Too many of today’s recruiting “innovations” focus on cramming more people into your recruiting supply chain. This is great but, if you don’t have the tools and systems in place to effectively process people, good applicants slip through the cracks.

We’ve received lots of requests for more information about the concept of lean hiring.  Here is a quick guide that you can use to start thinking about leaning your recruiting process.

If you are investigating applicant tracking software and are looking for a platform that will help you optimize your recruiting process, we suggest you investigate Newton, the only ATS designed to improve the corporate recruiting process.


Filed Under: Blog, choosing recruiting software, Industry Trends, Lean Hiring, Recruiting Advice

Video: Newton Applicant Tracking Software – See it in Action

February 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment

See Newton’s applicant tracking software in action in this new short video featuring people that use it every day.

How does a busy recruiter in San Francisco, a remote Hiring Manager in Austin and a performance- minded HR Director at Corporate all do their part to support the company’s recruiting program? They use Newton, easy-to-use, recruiting software designed to organize and manage internal recruiting programs at small and medium sized organizations.

Filed Under: Applicant Tracking, Blog, choosing recruiting software, Corporate Recruiting, Videos

Old vs Newton [Infographic]

October 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Click the infographic to enlarge.

Newton is modern, easy-to-use  applicant tracking software designed to organize and improve internal recruiting programs for small and medium sized businesses (30-3000 employees).  Newton features best-of-breed dashboards that create unparalleled visibility and transparency. And, Newton is the only ATS designed to drive the decisions that drive hiring taking into account all users in the corporate recruiting workflow. Industry leading adoption rates (+90%) ensure easy collaboration and powerful performance driven metrics allow HR and Recruiting users are always in control.

Filed Under: Applicant Tracking Software Reviews, Blog, choosing recruiting software, Corporate Recruiting, Industry Trends, Infographic, User Adoption

Newton Software Releases Next-Generation Job Requisition Approval Manager for Applicant Tracking Software

August 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) August 08, 2011

Newton Software, the developers of smart, corporate applicant tracking software, just revealed another key feature aimed at helping human resources and corporate recruiting departments in the creation and improvement of their online requisition approval process. The new feature empowers organizations to better control recruiting resources with an automated, email-driven job requisition approval tool.

Read more about Newton’s job requisition approval functionality….

Filed Under: Applicant Tracking, Applicant Tracking Software Reviews, Blog, choosing recruiting software, Design Philosophy, New Releases, Videos

What Type of Applicant Tracking Software is Right for Your Organization: The Movie

April 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

One of the most prevalent issues that ATS buyers face even before choosing a recruiting software vendor is deciphering what type of applicant tracking software is the best fit for their business. There are two main categories of recruitment technology, each with a distinct feature set designed to manage a specific type of recruiting.  Here’s a short video that breaks down the key differences between corporate applicant tracking software and applicant tracking software that’s designed for recruiting agencies and staffing firms.

Filed Under: Applicant Tracking, Blog, choosing recruiting software, Corporate Recruiting, Videos

7 Tips for Promoting Applicant Tracking Software User Adoption

December 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

This is going to sound crazy to the old guard enterprise software enthusiasts out there. Ready? It’s not about more features anymore. The game has changed. The features arms race is dead. More features is increasingly taking a backseat to better functionality, a close relative of usability. This is where user adoption comes into play, a concept that’s become the focal point of the business software industry. The less features an application has, the less confusing it is and consequently, more people are willing to use it. There’s a concept – people other than just recruiters actually using applicant tracking software and not just finding ways to work around it.

What we’ve learned is that when recruiting software achieves something valuable without being distracting or requiring hours of training, only then will it live up to its potential (those enterprise guys call this concept “return on investment”). Let’s face it: it’s usually harder to do simple things exceedingly well, than to just pile up features. The 80/20 rule applies here too: do well what 80 percent of your users do all the time, and you’ll create a good user experience that promotes user adoption. That’s the goal isn’t it?

Here are some tips that we put together regarding promoting adoption for applicant tracking software. These concepts can be applied to just about any technology.

Say goodbye to the age of more features. Say hello to the age of the killer usability.

Here are  7 tips for promoting applicant tracking software user adoption

1. Your users don’t care about the technology. What counts is what it does for them.

2. Forget about that one killer feature. Say hello to the age of the killer user-experience.

3. No one likes software training. Any ATS that requires extensive training will only be adopted by a small number of users

4. Avoid confusion. Its a deal-breaker.

5. Remember, only features that provide a good user experience will be used.

6. The 80/20 rule applies to user adoption. Choose an ATS that does well what 80 percent of your company does all the time.

7. Shop for usability. You won’t make ATS software easier to adopt by shopping for the most features.

Filed Under: Applicant Tracking, Blog, choosing recruiting software, Design Philosophy, Industry Trends, User Adoption Tagged With:

Newton Grows: Moves Applicant Tracking Software to the Cloud

November 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

We’re in the cloud! Newton, our popular applicant tracking software, joins leaders like Microsoft, IBM and Netflix in Amazon’s EC2 cloud computing environment. 2010 has been a banner year for Newton.  We’ve added over 100 new customers and our revenue has grown by over 1020%. Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) will provide us the agility and scalability for continued fast-paced growth and the reliability to continue to exceed our customers’ expectations.

This isn’t just some egregious cloud marketing sizzle. There’s steak here. Newton’s product team has been interested in cloud computing since Amazon announced its public availability.  We’ve anticipated moving to the cloud for some time and our development team has meticulously designed our applicant tracking software to take full advantage of the cloud computing infrastructure. Moving to the Cloud gives us a huge advantage over our peers.  We will continue to innovate and scale with better infrastructure, fewer resources and less operational overhead. Translation: we will continue to offer bombproof, easy-to-use applicant tracking software to more customers with less effort at more affordable prices. Good plan huh?

Why should Newton customers care?

Moving to Amazon’s EC2 platform makes Newton even more agile and provides existing and future customers significant advantages.

Scalability:

Amazon EC2 enables us to increase capacity within minutes, not hours or days. We can commission one, hundreds or even thousands of server instances simultaneously. This allows us to automatically scale Newton up and down depending on our customers’ needs. This scalability proved critical in November as we added over 15 new businesses to the Newton platform and actually improved performance.

Reliability:

Amazon EC2 offers a highly reliable environment where replacement instances can be rapidly and predictably commissioned. If a server fails (because they just do from time to time), Newton will just bounce to a server that is working – instantly! The EC2 service runs within Amazon’s proven network infrastructure and datacenters. That’s right, if you can buy a book on Amazon, you can status a candidate in Newton. The Amazon EC2 SLA commitment is 99.95% availability in any Amazon EC2 region. This means that Newton is ultra-reliable all over the world all the time.

Performance:

This is where our development team gets really geeked up. By switching to the Cloud, Newton has become even faster. And, it allows our team to do some really innovative things.  For example, we’re adding a very slick, powerful custom reporting engine to Newton. Most applicant tracking software bogs down when running complex reports. Not Newton! We’re leveraging EC2’s extra computing power and read-only database technology to enable users to run complex customized reports instantly. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Security:

We’re completely confident in Amazon’s ability to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of our customers’ data. They’ve got some of the world’s most trusted brands on the EC2 platform and Amazon takes security very seriously. So do we. See for yourself. Amazon Web Services’ security controls are evaluated every six months by an independent auditor in accordance with Statement on Auditing Standards No. 70 (SAS70) Type II audit procedures.

Newton Software continues to innovate.

Once again, Newton Software is innovating. Others may try to follow though; they’ll have some huge challenges. Most applicant tracking software is 10 year old legacy enterprise software that relies on legacy networks (not the Cloud) for operating power. ‘Switching’ to the Cloud won’t be a viable option for most. Alternatively, Newton was born on the web and now we’re going to leverage the world’s most cutting edge web-based infrastructure to help completely ‘disrupt’ the applicant tracking world in 2011 (and years to come). Good for Newton customers and partners. Bad for lumbering, legacy applicant tracking systems.  Long live the cloud.

Filed Under: Applicant Tracking, Blog, Business Model, choosing recruiting software, Industry Trends, New Releases, Trends Tagged With:

Applicant Tracking Software That Drives Decisions

November 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Having run corporate recruiting programs for nearly 10 years, we began developing Newton in 2004 after becoming frustrated with existing commercial recruiting platforms. Until the advent of Newton, there wasn’t any recruiting technology that facilitated the fundamental activity key to all recruiting programs: decisions making. Sure, we wanted something that would make rolling out, ramping up, managing, and improving hiring programs easier. And we wanted something that offered a more collaborative recruiting experience. But, we needed something that would intuitively drive the decisions that both recruiters and hiring managers are asked to make every day. Essentially, we needed something that would make saying yes or no simple.

It’s undeniable, over the years; hiring processes have become more complex. But, one day, we asked ourselves why does it have to be this way? Then, the “Newton apple” fell on our heads and we realized that recruiting is just a series of sequential waterfall tasks that are defined by a series of yes / no decision events. It became clear that the hiring process doesn’t need to be complex. In fact, if we could simplify the process, we could eliminate wasted activity (or inactivity) that can slow it down, confused people, and lead to bottlenecks and failures.

Newton, our popular applicant tracking software, is designed to move applicants through each stage of the process in a systematic, orderly, and continuous manner and to eliminate periods of inactivity (waiting) between each stage. Our intuitive, patent-pending workflow is native to Newton and doesn’t require weeks of customization to leverage. On the same token, it’s also not designed to allow users to add unnecessary steps to hiring that complicate the process

We’ve built years of practical recruiting knowledge into Newton, offering our customers an easy way to drive the decisions that drive recruiting. When you choose Newton, you get a recruiting platform that’s designed around a proven, fully optimized workflow that promotes decision making, collaboration, captures critical data for compliance, and provides game-changing analytics. It’s not just a tool … it’s an infrastructure for making decisions.

Watch how Newton drives decision making.

Filed Under: Applicant Tracking, Blog, choosing recruiting software, Design Philosophy, Lean Hiring, Recruiting Advice, RPO Software, Videos
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